The light being cast on China by the coming Summer Games is far brighter than the flickering Olympic flame now wending its way across that vast country. Politics, society, human rights, the status of Tibet and even the environment have been widely discussed.

Now a window has been opened on faith and religion in a country where six decades of Communist philosophy and rule might seem to have pushed those subjects into obscurity.

In a recent report the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has analyzed available surveys, some a few years old, and concluded that 31 percent of the Chinese population considers religion to be very or somewhat important in their lives, with only 11 percent rating it as meaningless. Even the exact starting time of the Summer Olympics is rooted in Confucianism and Chinese folk religions,  the report adds, where the numeral 8 is revered for its luck and power. The games will start on the 8th day of the 8th month of ‘08 at precisely 8 minutes and 8 seonds past 8 o’clock.

This does not mean that religious affiliation is high in China. Only one in five adults has an active connection, the report says, with one of the country’s five major religions — Buddhism (by far the largest single group), Protestantism, Catholicism, Islam and Taoism. That compares to 8 in every 10 adults in the United States who claim a religious affiliation.

But a recent report from East China Normal University in Shanghai appearing in state-approved media said that about 300 million Chinese over 16 — slghtly less than a third of the population in that age group — are religious, perhaps indicating the government has given recognition to the depth of religious sentiment.

The question is whether China’s modernization brought about by its economic engine will bring religion into society in a bigger way. The report notes that Hu Jintao, general secretary of the country’s Communist Party, earlier this year told the Chinese Politburo the leadedrship should try to “closely unite religious figures and believers … to build an all-around … prosperous society while quickening the pace toward the modernization of socialism.”

Photo credits: Reuters/Bobby Yip/David Gray

Remember ping-pong diplomacy, the exchange of ping-pong players between the United States and communist China in the 1970s that was one of the first steps that led to a thaw in relations between the two countries? If the Vatican had a ping-pong team, perhaps China would have considered sending their squad to the walled city in Rome for a match.

But the Vatican does not have a ping-pong team, as far as we know. So, the next best thing appears to be music. This week, Vatican Radio made a surprise announcement on its daily 2 p.m. bulletin. The China Philharmonic Orchestra of Beijing and the Shanghai Opera House Chorus will perform Mozart’s Requiem for Pope Benedict on May 7 in the Vatican’s audience hall, adding a stop to its already scheduled European tour.

As one diplomat said, “this could not have happened without the Beijing government approving it.” Given the fact that relations between the Vatican and Beijing have been scratchy to say the least, one can only wonder if this is the start of a mating game. It could lead to diplomatic relations and China’s recognition of the pope as leader of all Catholics in the world, including Chinese Catholics, many of whom have been forced to join the state-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.

Something seemed afoot in the last few months. In November, Monsignor Pietro Parolin, undersecretary for relations with states, was reported to have made a secret visit to China. The Vatican never denied the reports. In March, a Chinese delegation secretly had talks in the Vatican, sources confirmed.

One precedent for baton diplomacy that comes to mind is a similar event that happened in the Vatican on February 20, 1988 when the now mostly-forgotten Cold War still existed.

The then-Soviet Union’s Red Army Choir performed for Pope John Paul, singing, of all things, Ave Maria. It, too, was a shocker when it was announced. But on Dec 1, 1989, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made his historic visit to the Vatican, turning relations between the Kremlin and the Vatican on their head after some 70 years of mutual distrust. Relations between Russia and the Vatican were established in 1990 and the rest, as they say, is history.

So, if music be the food of diplomacy, play on.

Egypt’s parliament has passed a law criminalising protests in places of worship, a measure the government’s opponents see as part of a wider pattern of reining in popular opposition.

The bill has been touted as a bid to protect the sanctity of places of worship by a government eager to burnish its religious credentials, tarnished by unpopular foreign policy decisions and a continuous crackdown on the Islamist opposition.

However, the law passed on Wednesday is widely seen as an effort to clamp down on the protests often held in major mosques such as al-Azhar, the university-mosque that has been a center of Islamic learning for over a thousand years.

Protests are illegal without government approval in Egypt, and mosques such as al-Azhar are among the few venues available for the public to voice discontent, possibly because the government would be reluctant to be seen as violating such a hallowed place by sending in riot troops.

Such protests have enjoyed extensive coverage on pan-Arab channels such as al-Jazeera, and this seems to have irked the government, which recently spearheaded a drive to bring satellite broadcasters to heel.

Al-Azhar specifically has a history as a rallying point for uprisings and popular causes, including notably a rebellion against Napoleon, and Ahmed Urabi’s uprising in the late 19th century.

The official religious establishment is expected to back the measure; indeed the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar, Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, has often been on the receiving end of criticism and derision from protesters in the mosque over his close ties to the state.

In fact, the office of the Grand Sheikh, which Tantawi has filled since 1996, seems to enjoy better standing and more prestige outside Egypt and the Muslim world than inside, where most people believe the office has been completely compromised by its subordination to a secular state.

Many Egyptians point to the fact that the Grand Sheikh, at one time elected by al-Azhar’s scholars, is now appointed by the president and is effectively a salaried official of the state.                                                            

As such, the institution is regularly called upon to provide Islamic approval for whatever controversial policy the government wishes to pursue:  peace with Israel, Egypt’s participation in the Gulf War of 1990-91, or the payment of bank interest, to name just a few.

Interestingly, the new bill includes a provision that allows the government to jail or fine anyone involved in calling for a protest in a place of worship — even if no protest actually materialises.

It remains to be seen whether the bill will put an end to the protests, which often seemed to erupt fairly spontaneously after Friday prayers, or prove counterproductive by merely placing more pressure on a population already facing a growing raft of social ills.

Argentina’s new president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, is trying to improve relations with the Roman Catholic Church, but progress doesn’t come easy. Church-state ties turned tense under her husband Nestor, who preceded her as president from 2003 to 2007, because he occasionally alluded to church complicity in the country’s brutal 1976-1983 military dictatorship. And his health minister, who favored loosening restrictions on abortion, had a public spat with the bishop assigned to tending to the country’s military forces.

So when Fernandez took office in December, she moved quickly to patch things up. One step she took was to meet the head of the Argentine Bishops’ Conference , Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Jesuit who ran against Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in the 2005 papal election. However, the honeymoon didn’t last long. This time the problem was with the Vatican, which effectively rejected her new ambassador to the Holy See. The candidate, former Justice Minister Alberto Iribarne, is Catholic but divorced and living with a new partner, something the Church does not approve of.

The Vatican did not reject Iribarne’s nomination outright. It simply did not confirm him in the post, which in diplomatic terms means he hasn’t got a prayer. Local media report that Argentina is awaiting some formal response from the Vatican, but local Church sources say that is unlikely to materialise.

Argentina is expected to leave the post unfilled for now if the Vatican doesn’t unexpectedly accept Iribarne. “This issue is strictly between the Vatican and the government,” a source who works at Argentina’s Church offices said. “It’s unfortunate that this has come up now, when we were making progress toward good relations.”

The government has been reported to be considering scrapping the post of military bishop in retaliation against the Vatican. But a government source said although officials would like to eliminate the post, it was “not on the agenda” for now. All the same, the discussion was another opportunity for the Church’s critics to air their complaint that some military chaplains used confessions to squeeze information out of torture victims during the dictatorship.

The Church’s collaboration with the dictatorship is far from forgotten here. Last October, an Argentine court handed down a life prison sentence to a priest, former police chaplain Christian Von Wernich, convicting him of involvement in torture, kidnapping and murder during the notorious “dirty war” purge of suspected leftists.

When the head of the Catholic bishops’ conference in most countries speaks, he expects the specialist Church media to report on him and considers himself lucky if he makes it into the religion pages of the mainstream press. When the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) speaks, Italian media sit up and listen.

So when Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco (left) delivered his opening address to a regular meeting of the CEI’s permanent council last Monday, his speech (here in Italian) was all over the television and radio that night and in all mainstream newspapers the next morning.

Bagnasco, following up on recent economic surveys, opinion polls and media stories, said Italy was effectively in a state of malaise, if not outright decline. He said Italy appeared like a “frayed” country and at times seemed as torn apart as “confetti.” He cited a recent report by the social research organisation Censis that said Italy was suffering from “deep inertia” and seemed “incapable of building a common future”. A “dangerous lack of confidence” was widespread, he said.

Newspapers used the word “attack” to describe Bagnasco’s ctiticism of Italy’s current social and political situation. Most linked it to the fact that Pope Benedict had to scrap a visit to Rome’s La Sapienza University last week because of planned protests.
When the Vatican cancelled the visit, it said the reason was because the respectful climate it wanted at the university no longer existed. The interior ministry said security was not a problem, but Bagnasco said the visit was cancelled after “suggestions by Italian authorities”. The prime minister’s office denied that this was the case.

Last Sunday, a huge crowd, many of them students, turned out in St Peter’s Square to show their support for the Pope.

Bagnasco can speak more freely about the Italian political and social situation than Pope Benedict, but it is understood that he is reflecting the Vatican’s position. Italy’s powerful Catholic Church, with the backing of the Vatican, has been at odds with the the centre-left government over a number of issues, including a major clash last year over plans to give non-married heterosexual and homosexual couples more rights.

Ironically, a day after Bagnasco delivered his speech, Prime Minister Romano Prodi’s government itself started unravelling. Clemente Mastella, the justice minister who leads a small Catholic party, withdrew its support for the coalition. Mastella had earlier resigned as minister after he and wife became caught up in a corruption scandal in southern Italy. He says his family has done nothing wrong.

Mastella said one of straws that broke the camel’s back for him was his frustration, as a Catholic and a citizen, that the Pope could not even deliver an address at the main university in the Italian capital.

At the time of writing, the Italian government, a coalition that ranges from Catholics to hard-line communists, has asked for two confidence votes in parliament, on Wednesday and Thursday. If Prodi’s government does collapse and if the centre-right opposition led by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi eventually returns to power in one form or another, one man who probably won’t be crying is Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco.